Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

I was invited to Chase The Buzz again this year.

Toronto Star film critic Pete Howell takes an annual pre-festival poll of film critics, industry folks, festival programmers, bloggers, and buffs to get a feeling about which films are the most highly anticipated at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival. He limits you to 3 films, and your justifications are limited to a single sentence for each.

This year’s fest starts today and runs to the 19th, and I’m heading to town from tomorrow ’til the 14th. Normally, my visit to the festival is planned around the films I wanna see. This year, however, my visit to the festival is planned around a concert I wanna see.

And that’s the Minus 5/Baseball Project/Steve Wynn IV show at the ’shoe on Sunday night.

When Pete asked me for my 3 films, though, I chose them without regard to whether or not I would actually be able to see them at the festival. That was beside the point. The point was to choose 3 films I was really keen to see. Which I did. But, as it happens, I won’t be able to see any of ‘em while I’m there. Argh!!

A Town Called Panic
This puppetoon plays as part of the Midnight Madness programme. It is based on a Belgian tv show of the same name, created by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier. As a kid, I was much more apt to pull the cowboys and indians and horses out of the toy box than the Barbies, so it really does look like my childhood toys got together to put on a show. It is stop-motion animation that is charming in its crudeness (I’ll post a couple eps of the show here so you can check it out yourself). In fact, it is, perhaps, that very “backwardness” of the look of it that makes it so appealing to me. Well, that and the absurdity of it.

Life During Wartime
Writer/Director Todd Solondz has made some films I love and when he describes this as being somewhat related to two of my favourites (Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness), I am curious to see what he does with the characters that recur. Darkly humourous (what some more gentle souls might call scabrous) satire is Solondz’s gift… the screenplays are so smart, the narrative structures so interesting, the honesty so startling.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
Well, you already know how I feel about Werner Herzog… He actually has two films appearing in this year’s festival. One of them makes me a little nervous–something called Bad Lieutenant, which may or may not have anything to do with Abel Ferrara’s film of the same title (it certainly appears to be related), starring the frequently execrable Nic Cage. It could be great or it could be horrendous. I can’t quite picture it being anywhere in between…

But Pete would only let us pick three films, remember, so I reached for the other new Herzog instead. I hadn’t even heard of it before it was announced for TIFF.

It is based on a true story (which will certainly not stop Herzog from inventing most of the story–on a search for the ecstatic truth, the real truth is just a starting point for him) about an actor who takes a role much too seriously.

David Lynch is the producer. Lynch and Herzog: now, there’s a match made in either heaven or hell, depending on your P.O.V.

In stores tomorrow.

Many thanks to John Sakamoto for the tip-off on this beautiful version of MGMT’s song, Kids, by Ben Lee.

Oracular Spectacular is one of my favourite albums from the past couple of years but, honestly, I pay more attention to music than lyrics these days so I never really thought much about what they were singing. I’d blahblahblahblah along with what I thought they were saying, but without thinking about it. Ben Lee’s solo acoustic version turns the song on its head for me–with the lyrics front and centre.

When I listened to it for the first time on Saturday morning, I burst into tears.

I have found that music is a real trigger for sorrow in recent weeks. It doesn’t even have to be something as complex as lyrics that set me off–sometimes, it is just a chord progression or the key the song is in that is enough to squeeze my heart.

For the first week or two after Tristan died, I didn’t dare try to listen to any music. Gradually, I started to allow it back into my life. At first, just a little–listening to the radio (which is unheard of for me!) during my commute.

Then I listened to a few disks I’d picked up at a local record store–feeding the nostalgia that had been hovering around me since last fall when I reconnected with some friends from university… music from my past.

Later, at my request, my sister gave me a bunch of Tristan’s music–CDs, home-made mixes, and his iPod. A lot of it is rap and hip hop and metalcore but every once in a while, in one of his personal mixes, I’ll get a surprise–f’r'instance, Stayin’ Alive knocked me for a loop and a laugh one day, sandwiched between a couple of metalcore songs. Listening to his music hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be but the way it is hard is not in the way I thought it might be… What’s hard is hearing one band and wondering, “would he have liked this other band?” Because he’s not around for me to ask.

I keep running up against that subject here–regret, I mean–and I continue to step around it. It is the hardest thing I am dealing with at the moment.

All things (read: “my history”) considered, what would Christmas be without an appearance by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl and their cheerily sodden “Fairytale of New York”, hmm?

Miraculously, Shane is still alive and will be celebrating his 51st birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Shane! Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus!

Nostalgia seems to be the theme of my life recently. Fitting, then, that I post a Christmas song (a medley, actually, in this case) by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. When I was picking through my 7″ singles for something to illustrate this post, I discovered that I still have the t-shirt transfer that came with “Explosion of Taste”. I wonder if it would still work… (I also had the version that came with the Jiffy Pop. I seem to vaguely recall I actually tried to eat the stuff one very drunken evening. Alas. Prolly tasted like vinyl.) See those shadowy men behind Brian, Reid, and Don in the photo? I decorated my basement apartment on Jarvis @ Isabella with a series of those guys on the walls. I think it was originally for a party and then I just left ‘em up. When I worked at Wheels, Reid and Don–both such sweeties–always brought in an extra for me when they were putting up posters for their shows and those went up on my walls too. That apartment was Shadowy Chic. There were many sweaty, beery nights spent at Shadowy gigs in the back room of the Rivoli. Ah, memories. Those guys put on a helluva show. R.I.P., Reid.

From their album, Stocking Stuffer…